Chapter 13: Learning the Art of concealment

 The next day Saffiyah woke up to their tent being unzipped, ready for battle she jumped to her feet noticing that it was just Ash looking outside. "Dear, you scared me", "Im sorry" said Ash who was about to tear up due to the revelation of how she made her mother feel. "No no I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention and frightened you didnt I" Said Saffiyah as Ash shaked her head, sniffing. "Oh don't cry dear, it's ok, I'm not mad, it's just that we're in a dangerous place that if we're not careful we could get hurt" Said Saffiyah who managed to calm her daughter down. "Now, before we start our adventure into the cave, we will remain here and you will practice concealing yourself. I will pack our tent while you do that, okay dear?" Said Saffiyah who got a nod in response. 

 Ash sat back down on the spot from the day before and continued her training, Saffiyah packed up their tent. "Hmm, so that training session from yesterday gave her that much progress huh, I wonder if she'll be able to break through to the next realm when she manages to accomplish aura concealment, I'll guide her if that is the case since breaking through is difficult." Said Saffiyah who was busy packing the tent. After thirty minutes, Saffiyah finished packing the tent and went into meditation, attempting to increase her mastery. While the two of them were training, Shiny used her mana to empower the monster repellent as it would go low in a couple more hours. Sitting atop a tree, Shiny noticed that as Ash was training, she was getting really close to the first bottleneck, the most difficult thing to overcome when getting stronger. 

 Nothing happened over the next couple of hours as the repellant was doing its job perfectly, Ash was able to fully conceal her aura with the help of Grim. With an hour left of the repellant, Ash went into meditation due to the difficulty of keeping her aura concealed. "Concealing your aura is the easiest part to this skill, keeping it concealed even when sleeping is the hardest. In fact, sleeping without being able to conceal your aura alerts people that you are extremely vulnerable when resting or meditating. Just keep your aura concealed and with time it will become second nature for you" Said Shiny, to which Ash gave a nod to her explanation. 

 After an hour, Ash was getting more proficient in concealing her aura, and having almost only a quarter away from ranking up her core, she felt much much stronger. Saffiyah also got out of meditation and was surprised at the progress her daughter made, "Ready to head into the cave dear?" Ash nodded in response. As they both got up and started walking, Saffiyah was surprised since just training her concealment skill gave her daughter a huge power boost. As the trio walked towards the cave, Saffiyah would send out more projectiles to attract the bats away from them. When they finally reached the cave, the young Ash was exhausted due to her little body walking such a distance, this however acted as a sort of training and Ash was making steady improvements for a toddler. 

 "We'll take a break right here, here you go Ash '' Said Saffiyah who gave Ash a cup of orange juice and crackers as a snack. She herself took out a slice of monster meat and using her flame magic roasted it. As they both had a light snack before delving deeper, Shiny noticed something. It was another bat but was of neutral element nature, another rare monster as the amount of mana within its core was almost ten times the normal bat. Shiny shot it down and took its core since the material from its body wasnt as valuable as the other elemental bats. Saffiyah stashed it away for Aaron to use to boost his mana capacity when he becomes more experienced. 

 After a bit, Ash and Saffiyah finished eating and headed into the cave, continuing their journey to do what they set out to do. 

MC: Ashfall Revera 

Age: 1

Stats: Vitality: 1 Mana: 16,907

Strength: F 15 Endurance: F 6 Agility: F 3 Core: F 83

Charisma: 12 Wisdom: 7 Luck: 12 Will: 7 Fate: 0

Abilities: White Flames(Very destructive and consumes a lot of mana, cool ash affect)

Affinity: Ashen Flames

Skills: Intermediate Mana Control, Basic Affinity Imbuement, ?Familiar Resonance?, Basic Mana Manifestation, Basic Mana Density, Basic weapon manifestation, Basic mana coating, 

???Familiar???: Grimoire(Gained from birth) 

Mana: 22,304

Familiar Abilities: Corruption(Shadow alignment; Changes the nature of mana to be more chaotic, with higher mastery can even give mana a will)

Second Mana Pool(Has its own separate mana pool, normally Familiars must rely on an outside mana source or a bonded being)

Affinity: Empowerment

Skills: Intermediate Mana Control, Intermediate Mana Manifestation ?Familiar Resonance?, Intermediate Mana Density, Intermediate mana buff magic, Intermediate weapon manifestation, Intermediate mana coating, Intermediate Affinity Imbuement